Better Than Nothing
by torsui
Summary: Better than nothing means better than having nothing, or not better than anything. Ban copes, badly. Shounen-ai (BanGinji), angst, etc.


As far as I know, there's not really been an explanation as to how the Jagan works in the series, so I speculated that it was a form of telepathy.

Ban/Ginji angst. Or rather Ban angst. _Massive angst._ Please don't hurt me.

**Better Than Nothing**

He pressed his watch against his (h)ear(t) for a pulse, mechanical straight dead _tickticktick_ against the rhythm of his own breath pounding against closed eyelids. Logical noise, nothing but metal and springs like a like a _clock_, but it helped keep his dreams in time and it was better than nothing, better than nothing.

How many times had Ginji said that to him? How many? Better than nothing, the five hundred yen they got for retrieving a girl's kitten from a tree. Better than nothing, as he grumbled over Hevn's exorbitant mediator's fees. Better than nothing, food over self-image, life over pride. Better than nothing.

Nowadays he curled up at night like a child, perpetually chilled under a ratty motel blanket or in the 360, comforting smoke-scented haven around him, beside him, but missing a part (heart) and so jarring like an old beloved song played just a touch faster on the radio. Alien and eerie and yet familiar enough to grasp only not. The GetBacker s living out of step with each other, just one step, just one minute and lifetime and GetBacker.

Some nights he woke from sleeping and didn't know he had. So when he looked down to see browned blood on his shirt he thought it was a nightmare. Just a nightmare. He screamed because nobody else would hear him, safe in the confines of his mind.

Then he'd wake up again and realize that nobody did.

Ginji would ask him what was wrong (_Ban-chan?_) and Ban would stare because didn't Ginji see? He always did, he was slow and simple but not stupid, not his partner, and he was doubly sharp when it came to Ban, so why did he have to ask such a stupid question, why? And there would be a horrible silence because for a moment he couldn't remember how Ginji would react to this kind of thing and so Ginji didn't either.

Other nights he could close his eyes against the world and immediately hear Ginji's voice murmuring into his ear even though he knew better but he'd say _Ban-chan Ban-chan_, and of course it was Ginji, why did he doubt that? Only Ginji could call him that, only Ginji had dared because Ginji was Ginji was Ginji was his.

* * *

"Ginji, open your eyes. Open your eyes, dammit!"

* * *

They tried to make him see somebody. A shrink, or somebody he could care less about. He didn't cooperate. They left him alone. He didn't need them. All he needed was Ginji.

Small wonder, then, his current state of being.

* * *

"Ban . . . chan . . .?"

* * *

So Ban's watch went _ticktick_ against his ear at nights and it wasn't even the right sound but better than nothing, and better than nothing. It didn't do anything to wake him up, for all that he could hear his partner's laughter unmistakable in his ears, but still, better than nothing and better than nothing.

Sometimes he'd almost break through from the reality he remembered into this—but this was reality, wasn't it? The dreams he spun would be reality for their viewers, changed as he wished, ruled by his will for one perfect minute. This is his minute, even though something tells him that the minute's long passed, Midou Ban, days and days ago, so wake up, wake up. Just one minute—were you seeing a dream? Yes, because I'm living a nightmare.

Limit's passed, he used his Jagan opened his eyes touched a mind, and the minute's over. OVER. He's perfected his timing to the second so he KNOWS and yet he won't wake up, he doesn't want to—

—open his eyes, burning as they stare at the light, his light, inhuman cold connection with lightning-riddled brown, one time too many for snaky eyes today but this is the last time last last he'll be doing this so I have to, have to, to, to give myself a dream(e)scape or I'll—

—falling into deep brown, feel overstrained barrier crack and melds, ran together like mixed rain and tears indistinguishable and salt flooding through the whole, slippery when wet really. Fingers grasping at the gush, let it twine around red and dripping and now he's holding it, can push it back into where it's supposed to be but, failed failing efforts to hold it back so all he can do to help is open his eyes but he did that already he's:

Doing it now.

In front of his eyes, Ginji smiled.

* * *

Blue on brown, and Dream that there is no pain. Take it with you as you fall asleep.

* * *

Memory of failure. Failure to save the other's body, and now failure to keep his mind. Things are swallowing him until he's lost in the other and starting to lose-self (die) and still it's not enough, he's not touched seen remembered enough . . .

World snaps apart in a minute and he doesn't like that because he wasn't finished. So he invokes his Jagan again, and again, tumbling deeper head over heels until he can't tell which is head or heels or even if they're his. So more than one time too many. He was only intending the once, which is another paving stone in the road. Personal road, personal hell, and he's racing along it with enthusiasm.

Four times tearing down the wall between self and dreamer (lover), meshing selves (partners) together through a gaze, four times, five, ten, until he can't bring the wall back up to seal himself off again, too riddled with self-inflicted wounds. She warned him, the old witch, she warned him oh yes she did. He doesn't care.

Such a selfish thing to do. Ginji couldn't even see the dreams he was giving him after the first time. After the he doesn't know how many times, there was nothing in behind glassy and lifele—dull(dead)brown eyes to see with. And still he didn't stop.

So over and over and over until he can't hear for his partner's voice, sound waves thumping between his eardrums _Ban-chan Ban-chan wake up wake up_. Laughing, smiling, and for a moment he smiles back. Better than nothing (smiling at nothing), even if it still isn't everything and never can be. He knows this, Jagan no Otoko, that the dreams aren't real and never can be. But a dream is better than nothing and he doesn't want to wake up.

* * *

Blood on his hands, cold and sticky. Monkey trainer says Midou and Hevn says Ban-kun and they take Ginji away from him but that's okay, he's got him (most of him, mangled and imperfect but him) up inside locked away protected (trapped) by slitted eyes.

* * *

What's in a name? Ban-chan Ban-chan Ban-chan. Midou Ban. Sama. No, Ban-chan . . . Ban-chan ? Yeah Ban-chan I'm hungry Too bad, Ban-chan, so mean !

These days, it was all he wanted to hear. So he wouldn't wake up to the place where nobody left was allowed to call him that. Lingering memories burned into his mind by his own volition to create his dream of one minute, and yes yes yes, he tells himself that the dreaming (lies) is better than one GetBacker without the S, better than a car with no passenger beside him, better than nothing better than nothing better than (nothing at all).

**owari**

Notes: I declare the concept of consistency in tenses dead in this fic.

The problem with starting fics to assuage bad moods is that they come out like this. Whee. First GetBackers fic ever, and I end up doing this to our beloved repossessor pair. Oi. Not a good precedent, I'm thinking.

Oh yeah: the site hates my original formatting—it wasn't even anything fancy for crying out loud—hence this for now. Oi.


End file.
